Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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seasons together. Year three has seen a much less elastic group to this point in the season. Diaco described his defensive checklist with the same matter-of-fact progression that the staff has taken to the overall process. To keep teams from scoring points, the defense must first con- centrate on itself and eliminate mistakes that lead to big plays. Then it's on to studying the opponent to shut down the ways in which they score the most points — Navy's fullback dive in the triple option or Michigan State's work- horse Le'Veon Bell, for example. Those two points were enough to keep the Irish preoccu- pied until this season. "After that, if I had to put an emphasis, if you forced me to, we're in- terested in attacking the football and creating ball disruptions," said Diaco, wary of wandering too far from the team's most fundamental goals. The difference in ball disruptions this season is clear. Notre Dame cre- ated 13 turnovers in its first four games, only one shy of its total from all of 2011. The new- found ability to make plays instead of just pre- venting them has trans- formed the Irish defense from a passable one to a game-changing group this fall. So, to what can this BCS hopes are easy to ignore when they aren't such an imminently real possibility. Dealing with height- team attribute its sud- den ability to create sud- den changes? Consistent pressure on the quar- terback doesn't hurt. Neither do a few gift- wrapped mistakes along the way. For the most part, though, sudden had nothing to do with it. Notre Dame's ability to take that next step on defense is the dividend of a message delivered on a daily basis. "I think it is the group of guys we have. … We really want it," said Russell, who made his first career interception against Michigan. "Our whole 11 are hungry. Ev- ery single play, we want to get better." part. The carrot that the Irish have tried so hard to ignore the past three years is being dangled a lot closer to their faces after a 4-0 start and a schedule that looks more navigable each week. SUSTAINING SUCCESS Now comes the hard ened expectation is all part of the process, and it's a step for which Kelly has been gearing up since last August. That's when he hung a sign with another set of explicit step-by-step directions in the team locker room. Among its directives are: "Don't be- lieve or fuel the hype," "Avoid the noise" and "Speak for yourself." A couple of clichés hanging over their heads can go only so far to in- doctrinate players and keep them from getting ahead of themselves. Diaco said the blueprint they have followed since arriving in South Bend has its own built-in hype guards. By focusing on the mundane day-by- day details for so long, the players should know what to value by now. "We're interested in building a player that understands that the minute he decelerates and takes a second to pat himself on the back, somebody is going to pass him immediately by," he said. "We're in-